M.C. Beaton: Death of a Prankster

Priscilla and Hamish, now both outside the front door, turned slowly, as though being pulled by wires. “What about poor little Miss Trent?” asked Hamish.

“I swore on the Bible not to say a word,” said Mrs Macdonald, “but that’s when Mr Trent was alive and you say he’s dead now?”

“Yes, murdered, and you really must tell me what you know,” said Hamish. “Promises, even ones made on the Bible, must be broken if you know something which will help the police in a murder investigation.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose…Come back in.”

“Let her tell the story in her own good time,” Hamish muttered to Priscilla. “We’ll get more out of her that way.”

Priscilla marvelled at his patience, for they had to wait while another pot of tea was made and more scones produced.

“Well, let me see,” she began. “The two Trent ladies lived in Perth. Miss Betty got into trouble. Miss Angela had taken up an interest in archaeology at that time and was off in foreign parts. Perth was a smaller town then but I never found out who the man was. Miss Betty would not say. Mr Trent came to see me. A fine-looking man. He said that it was a dreadful scandal, and of course, it would have been if news of it had leaked out. Now what I tell you may make Mr Trent sound a hard man, but forget what you’ve heard about the Swinging Sixties. For a woman of Miss Betty’s standing, it was a scandal to have an illegitimate child. Mr Trent said that Miss Betty would be kept indoors from the time she started to ‘show’. He said he would move out of Perth after the birth, take the baby with him, and bring it up as his own son or daughter, whatever sex the child should prove to be. Miss Betty was a bit dumpy in shape, so she didn’t have to hide away the way a slimmer woman would have had to. Mr Trent was in a fair rage. He felt the fact that Miss Betty had disgraced herself was a reflection on him.

“Well now, I attended the birth and I was glad it was an easy one, for I felt poor Miss Betty had enough to worry her. It was a lovely baby. She doted on it. She loved that little boy with her whole heart and soul. But Mr Trent told her he had bought a house up in Sutherland and a flat for Miss Betty and Miss Angela in London. She was to go to London right away and forget about the child. She was to forget it was her own. He had already engaged a nanny. He made her swear to keep quiet about it. He said if she ever told anyone, he would hand the boy back to her and then make sure she never had a penny to support him.

“Miss Betty was weak in spirit after the childbirth, the way mothers are, and she agreed, but she cried something dreadful until I was glad to see her go. I thought she would upset the baby by clutching him and crying over him the way she did. More tea?”

“And did he legally adopt the boy?”

“No, I don’t think so. Miss Betty said, what about the birth certificate? He’d find out when he saw his birth certificate. Mr Trent said there was no need for him ever to see it. He would arrange things like the boy’s school and his first passport and things like that. So I don’t think he really adopted him.

“I called round to see the baby after Miss Betty had gone and just before Mr Trent was moving up north. It was a lovely baby and the nanny was very efficient. English, she was, but I can’t recall her name. But Miss Betty stuck in my mind. She was crazy about that baby of hers. Crazy, she was.”

They finally managed to escape after having made sure she had nothing left to tell them.

“Drive on and park somewhere quiet,” ordered Hamish. “We need to think.”

Priscilla obediently drove out of Perth and eventually pulled into a parking place on the A9.

“We’ve got it at last,” said Hamish. “We’ve got the Why. We need the How. Betty Trent is not a big strapping woman like her sister. How could she get the old man into the wardrobe? Where are my notes? Let me think.”

He flicked through them impatiently. “Here we are. The night of the murder, she was seen speaking to him. What could she have said? Let me think. I am Betty Trent. I worship my son from afar. I may just have been told that day that he is to inherit nothing. I am mad with rage. My brain is working double time with rage. I get the knife and substitute the blade of the boning knife in the shaft.” Hamish fell silent.

Priscilla sat and watched him. He suddenly struck his brow. “Of course!” cried Hamish. “Listen to this, Priscilla. It’s easy. Old Trent must have been mad at Titchy Gold for having accused him of ruining her dresses. Say Betty goes up to him. Say she praises him for that joke with the dummy in the wardrobe. Say she says she has an even better idea. What if Dad were to hide himself in the wardrobe with a monster mask on? That would frighten her out of her wits. Trent steps into the wardrobe. Instead of handing him the knife, Betty lets him have it.”

“Wait a bit,” said Priscilla. “Betty’s a small woman. It was a direct blow.”

“Damn!” He rubbed his red hair in agitation. “She could have stood on a chair.”

“Why?”

“I know. To help him on with the mask…something like that. He turns round in the wardrobe, she ties the strings. He turns to face her. She stabs him and slams the door shut and the door must have kept him propped upright. It’s a huge wardrobe but a shallow one and the door is heavy with that great mirror on it.”

“And Titchy? Why Titchy?”

“Because I think Betty’s mind was already turned by the first murder. Titchy had turned her beloved son down flat. So she takes a cup of chocolate laced with sleeping pills in to Titchy. ‘Drink it up like a good girl. It’ll make you sleep’.”

“And would Titchy just meekly have done that?”

“I think for all her faults, Titchy would have been disarmed by a show of kindness from one of the ladies of the house. Yes, I think that’s the way it was.”

“An awfully long shot, Hamish. How are you going to prove it?”

“She’s off balance. I’ll just tell her how she did it and see if she cracks.”

“She may not.”

“I’ll have the others there.”

Priscilla laughed. “Great detective gathers suspects in the library?”

He grinned. “It’s just that it might be amazing what some of the others might remember about Betty if they hear her accused of murder.” His grin faded. “I hate Andrew Trent. I think he was damned lucky to have lived so long and then to die from a nice clean knife stab. He deserved worse. He’s the real murderer in that, by his actions, he created a murderess out of his daughter.”

“It’s getting late,” said Priscilla. “We won’t be back till midnight.”

“I’ll go up in the morning,” said Hamish. “Betty’s killing days are over. There’s nothing that can happen before tomorrow.”

♦

“I could kill you,” said Jan, glaring at Melissa.

They were all sitting round the dinner table.

“Why do you want to kill her?” asked Charles.

“Because she has talked my gullible son out of giving me any money.”

“That’s not true, Mother,” protested Paul. “We have agreed to give you some money, but not all. You’ll find yourself very comfortably off.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” said Jan, “if the girl were really in love with you. But it’s your money she wants.”

“Is that true?” Betty asked Melissa.

“No, of course not,” said Melissa, blushing and angry. “I would marry Paul if he didn’t have a penny.”

“There you are, Mother,” said Paul. “That’s the sort of woman you could never understand. Melissa loves me. Damn it. I’ll prove it. You can have all the money. All I want is Melissa.”

Melissa’s stomach felt as if she had just been dropped from a very great height without a parachute. Oh, dear thyme-scented villa on the Mediterranean, dear Costas and Juanita – gone for ever. She and Paul would work and scrimp and save for the rest of their lives. The fact that both of them earned very good salaries did not occur to her. What was a very good salary compared to millions? And what of all those clothes she had been studying in a copy of Vogue? In her mind’s eye, a white Rolls-Royce purred along the coast towards that villa carrying, not her, but Jan, selfish, greedy, clutching Jan.